Wound closure conventionally involves the use of sutures, staples, glues or combinations of these devices by the surgeon or medical practitioner to approximate tissue. The wound closure devices need to be easy for the surgeon to use, capable of rapid deployment and implantation, and the devices also need to provide superior wound closure patient outcomes. The design and assessment of these devices requires testing of the products in models that closely represent the surgical in-vivo state of the tissue. In addition, it is important for the inexperienced surgical practitioner to gain wound closure skills by practicing on ex-vivo models. Devices and systems have been developed for such testing, but have several deficiencies. One currently used and known technique for mounting tissue includes a flat mounting of the tissue specimen via cable ties or string (e.g., suture) to a static frame. The model consists of four (4) rods mounted in a square. The cable ties or string are inserted through the full thickness tissue sample and individually wrapped around the rods and secured in place by knotting or tightening the cable ties. The resulting tissue mount provides discrete points of fixation, which increases the level of tension at each fixation point, resulting in non-uniform distribution of tension, and allows the tissue to sag and hammock. Another currently used technique for fixation of a tissue sample includes a textured clamping surface, which pinches the tissue. The clamping of the tissue in this manner disrupts the integrity of the tissue properties and results in inadequate fixation where regions of the tissue are squeezed out from over-compression. The deficiencies of prior art techniques are significant in that the flat mounting of the tissue results in a distribution of forces not seen in vivo, and testing closure devices in such models does not replicate in vivo closure in several significant aspects. Body structures such as an abdominal wall are curved structures. Placing incisions in a flat, tensioned tissue specimen will result in tissue openings that are different from in vivo incisions in the following manner. The abdominal wall is a multi-layer structure, and other tissue specimens are also typically multi-layered. When tensioned in a flat manner, the individual layers are tensioned differently, resulting in the external layer not being tensioned enough and the internal layers being over tensioned. The resulting tissue opening is inconsistent along the full thickness abdominal wall. When testing wound closure devices on such flat tissue incisions, the tissue will not behave in a manner completely representative of in vivo performance. Secondly, training surgeons and medical practitioners in wound closure techniques on flat tissue specimen models will not produce transferable skills useful in applying the wound closure skills to in vivo wound closure procedures. Similar problems are associated with other curved body structures including body walls, etc.
There is a need in this art for novel systems and device for the ex vivo testing of wound closure devices under conditions simulating in vivo use of the devices. There is a further need for novel systems and devices for the ex vivo training of surgeons and medical practitioners in the use of wound closure devices under conditions simulating in vivo use of the devices.